Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas

This is our long day on the road on the way down.  Other than rest stops or meals, we're in the car and pounding rubber. We had a pretty sketchy driver switch on back roads in Missouri about 4a.m. (there was no good place to stop and our drivers needed a break!). We had some pretty substantial rain this morning, but Ryan did a great job leading the caravan! 

Our two white swan vans and the ugly duckling

Since midnight, we've been through Illinois, Missouri and half of Oklahoma, with about 30 seconds of Kansas just for fun (aka, we took the wrong exit out of a gas station and found a detour. We hit 3 states in 3 minutes!)

We stopped in Fairland, OK this morning and met the His House mission team from Saginaw Valley for breakfast. They were at Casas por Cristo this last week and it was fun to hear about their building project.  Breakfast took a lot longer than originally planned, but our waitress at the family diner we invaded was awesome!  She was super patient with a group of 40+ and it was a nice break from the vans. 

We're in Amarillo, TX now for dinner (8:20 MI time, 7:20 TX time) at Denny's.  It felt great to finally get out of Oklahoma (that state never seemed to end!) and we've been laughing about the billboards and windmills in TX.  There's also been discussions about the best Disney/Pixar movie (feel free to cast your votes in the comments!) 

Some other random notes from the trip so far:
* Dramamine is not a great option to give Jim, unless you like hearing the "Dora the Explorer" theme song over and over again.  Bendadryl is a better option. 

* The window seats don't give you a lot of leg room, but having something to sleep against makes it totally worth it. You don't realize how much you care about personal space until you're all packed into the van.

* Sleeping in the van is way harder than people originally thought it would be.

*Getting to know other people and how friendly everyone's been, even with a lack of personal anything available to them. 

*Van 1 is in the process of making a music video in the van. 

*24 hour gas stations are life savers in the middle of the night!

*When choosing a co-pilot, don't just pick the person who's been sitting up straight all night because they can't sleep and assume that when allowed the luxury of a comfortable co-pilot seat, they'll stay awake. 

*Oklahoma is really long, really brown and has really bumpy roads. 

*Don't sit across the table from Ryan, Drew and Matt, especially when they're tired.  You never know what kind of jelly/salt/sugar combination they'll add to your water. 

*It's really fun watching people's expressions as they pass us on the road or watch us pile out or in the vans at breaks. I don't think they know what to really think when we all climb out.

*Jon is referring to himself as the total package.  Not only is he a driver, he's also our resident EMT (see note about Jim above), he also serves as weatherman and tour guide through St. Louis.  

Thank you for your prayers as we travel.  We're headed for Roswell, NM tonight where we'll spend the night at a motel. We head to El Paso, TX tomorrow to buy our food for the week and meet our Casas team leader and then we'll cross the border on Monday! 

If you want more up-to-date info, you can follow @jogoboom on Twitter!